Toronto Economic Summit

US Department of State Bulletin, August, 1988

ENVIRONMENT

31. We agree that the protection and enhancement of the environment is essential. The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development has stressed that environmental considerations must be integrated into all areas of economic policy-making if the globe is to continue to support humankind. We endorse the concept of sustainable development.

32. Threats to the environment recognize no boundaries. Their urgent nature requires strengthened international cooperation among all countlies. Significant progress has been achieved in a number of environmental areas, The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is a milestone. All countries are encouraged to sign and ratify it.

33. Further action is needed. Global climate change; air, sea, and fresh water pollution; acid rain; hazardous substances; deforestation; and endangered species require priority attention. It is, therefore, timely that negotiations on a protocol on emissions of nitrogen oxides within the framework of the Geneva Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution be pursued energetically. The efforts of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) for an agreement on the transfrontier shipment of hazardous wastes should also be encouraged as well as the establishment of an inter-governmental panel on global climate change under the auspices of UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). We also recognize the potential impact of agriculture on the environment, whether negative through over-intensive use of resources or positive in preventing desertification. We welcome the Conference on the Changing Environment to be held in Toronto next week.

FUTURE SUMMITS

34. We, the Heads of State or Government, and the representatives of the European Community, believe that the Economic Summits have strengthened the ties of solidarity, both political and economic, that exist between our countries and that thereby they have helped to sustain the values of democracy that underlie our economic and political systems. Our annual meetings have provided the principal opportunity each year for the governments of the major industrialized countries to reflect, in an informal and flexible manner, upon their common responsibility for the progress of the world economy and to resolve how that responsibility should have practical manifestation in the years ahead. We believe that the mutual understanding engendered in our meetings has benefitted both our own countries and the wider world community. We believe, too, that the opportunities afforded by our meetings are becoming even more valuable in today's world of inereasing interdependence and inereasing technological change. We have therefore agreed to institute a further cycle of Summits by accepting the invitation of the President of the French Republic to meet in France, July 14-16, 1989.

OTHER ISSUES

Human Frontier Science Program

1. We note the successful conclusion of Japan's feasibility study on the Human Frontier Science Program and are grateful for the opportunities our scientists were given to contribute to the study, We look forward to the Japanese Government's proposal for the implementation of the program in the near future.